Obama names Robert Orr to lead Asian Development Bank

WASHINGTON (March 22, 2010) –President Barack Obama on Monday announced his intent to nominate four more key administration posts. Rafael Moure-Eraso would be named Chair of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. Mark A. Griffon would be a Member of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board; Robert M. “Skipp” Orr would be named United States Executive Director of the Asian Development Bank, with the Rank of Ambassador. Carl Wieman would be an Associate Director for Science for the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

“I am grateful that these exceptional individuals have chosen to dedicate their talents to serving the American people,” said President Obama said. “I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead.”

Robert M. “Skipp” Orr is currently Chairman of the Board of the Panasonic Foundation, a member of the Board of Trustees of J.F. Obirin University and a member of the Board of the East-West Center Foundation.

From January 2002 until March 2007 Orr was President of Boeing Japan. He held this position during the development of the most successfully selling airplane in history, the 787 Dreamliner. Prior to joining Boeing, Orr was Vice President and Director of European Affairs for Motorola based in Brussels. And before that he held various senior level posts with Motorola in Japan culminating as Vice President of Government Relations.

In that capacity he successfully led the negotiations that opened up the cellular phone market in Japan. He is also a former Vice President of the American Chamber of Commerce Japan. In addition to the corporate world, Orr also has spent many years in academia and the United States Government.

Between 1985 and 1993 he was a professor of Political Science at Temple University Japan with two years off to run the Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies and the Stanford Center for Technology and Innovation at the Stanford Japan Center in Kyoto. His book, The Emergence of Japan’s Foreign Aid Power, published by Columbia University Press won the 1991 Ohira Prize for best book on the Asia Pacific.

Orr’s career began in 1976 when he served for two years as Legislative Assistant to Congressman Paul G. Rogers (D-FL) a 12 term member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Between 1978 and 1981 he served on the House Foreign Affairs Asia Subcommittee staff seconded from the Select Committee on Narcotics.

In 1981 he was appointed as Special Assistant to the Assistant Administrator of Asia in the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Department of State. Orr holds a B.A. in History, cum laude, from Florida Atlantic University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Tokyo University. He speaks German and Japanese fluently and has intermediate French.

Rafael Moure-Eraso is currently serving as a Professor and Graduate Coordinator for the Department of Work Environment in the School of Health and Environment at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he has been Chair of the department for the last five years.

He has been a member of the faculty at the University of Massachusetts for twenty two years – 12 as an Associate Professor (1988) and 10 as a full Professor since 2000. From 1993-2000, Dr. Moure-Eraso was a Visiting Lecturer in Occupational Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. In 1994-95, he held an Intergovernmental Personnel Assignment at the U.S. Department of Labor as a special senior advisor on the prevention of chemical exposures to the Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health.

Prior to joining the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Dr. Moure-Eraso served for 15 years (1973-1988) as an Industrial Hygienist Engineer with the national offices of two international unions: the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers and the United Automobile Workers. His ten years as an Industrial Hygienist of the OCAW gave him substantial field experience in the Chemical and Petro-Chemical industry.

Dr. Moure-Eraso has been a member of the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health for OSHA and a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. He also was a member of both the National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council and the Board of Scientific Counselors to the National Toxicological Program for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences at the National Institute of Health.

He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering (University of Pittsburgh ‘67, Bucknell University, ’70) and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Environment Health (Industrial Hygiene) (University of Cincinnati ’74, ’82). He has been a Certified Industrial Hygienist for Comprehensive Practice (CIH)since 1985. Dr. Moure-Eraso is a senior member of AIChE, AIHA, ACGIH and APHA where he had held national leadership positions.

Mark A. Griffon’s career has included work in academia, the public sector and the private sector. He started his career in the private sector as a project manager for Chemical Waste Management and then worked in the Work Environment Department at the University of Massachusetts Lowell to develop and deliver Hazardous Waste Training, Radiation Worker Training, and Toxics Use Reduction planning curricula.